The Supreme Court has blocked President Trump’s emergency tariffs, but Trump plans to invoke other laws to maintain or increase tariffs.
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President Donald Trump slammed the U.S. Supreme Court as a “disgrace” and said he would keep the tariffs in place through alternative means after a 6-3 decision invalidated his global tariffs.
The president went on to announce on Friday that despite the Supreme Court’s decision, he would impose 10% tariffs worldwide for 150 days, replacing some of the emergency tariffs that were reversed by the courts.
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These tariffs would far exceed existing tariffs on steel, aluminum, auto parts, and several other sectors. The new 10% tariff will take effect in about three days.
President Trump called the court’s liberal judges “a disgrace to our country” and accused their conservative allies of being “unpatriotic and violating the U.S. Constitution.”
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that President Trump cannot use emergency powers to impose significant tariffs on imports from around the world without the consent of Congress.
The decision was a major blow to President Trump’s economic policies, with tariffs expected to total $3.6 trillion between 2026 and 2035, according to Oxford Economics estimates. Friday’s ruling will immediately slash the effective tariff rate from 12.7% to 8.3%, said Bernard Jarosz, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
But the US president claims he found a loophole to keep tariffs in place and even increase them by 10%, relying on other existing laws that give him powers on trade.
“To protect our country, the President can actually impose more tariffs than I have imposed over the past year under various customs authorities,” Trump said.
“Therefore, we are able to use other statutory and customs authorities, which are also recognized and fully permitted.”
“The tariff bludgeon has diminished.”
Experts warn that this is easier said than done.
“Overall, tariffs remain an obstacle for the Trump administration because they make it difficult to announce and implement tariffs quickly,” Rachel Ziemba, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera. “But the administration is predictably trying to use existing tools to piece together a series of measures to preserve tariff revenue and some leverage. But these are times of uncertainty.”
Kimberly Clausing, a researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, agreed in an email to Al Jazeera that the ruling “has weakened the president’s tariff cudgel. Foreign governments and domestic businesses alike can expect some relief from the U.S. tariff process.”
But the uncertainty that U.S. consumers and businesses have faced over the past year is far from over. The administration has already indicated plans to pivot to a “Plan B” that would use other authorities to impose similar tariffs. “This means that President Trump’s tariffs will continue to burden the U.S. economy, even if the alternatives are not as agile or far-reaching as IEEPA tariffs,” Clausing said.
Over the past year, President Trump has not only used tariffs to raise U.S. revenue and encourage companies to expand manufacturing in the United States with the ultimate goal of creating jobs, but he has also used tariffs as a wrap-up to pressure countries on a variety of issues, including upholding the U.S. foreign policy platform. For example, it imposed a punitive tariff of 25% on India’s purchases of Russian oil.
Since tariffs can no longer be used as a cudgel against a wide range of issues, President Trump may turn to other actions, such as sanctions or military action, to advance some of his agenda.
“He has already used military force, including imposing sanctions on Venezuela and Iran,” Ziemba said. “The bigger question is whether he will continue to put equal pressure on friends and foes and try to change America’s friends. It’s too early to say, but his strategy of escalation to de-escalation will come at a cost.”
